‘Coming to America’ Sequel in the Works at Paramount, With the Original Writers

Fans of romantic comedies, vintage Eddie Murphy and the wave of ’80s/’90s nostalgia we’re all riding, listen up: Coming to America is officially getting a sequel at Paramount. Today, the studio announced that the original writers — Barry Blaustein and David Sheffield — are coming back to pen part two, but there’s no word yet on whether Murphy will be back to reprise his role as the African prince.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the long-gestating sequel project is finally making some moves forward by hiring back the writers. It’s still in very early development, but it has a writing crew and a producer (Kevin Misher, producer of Carrie, Public Enemies). We don’t know if Eddie Murphy is coming back for this one, but he very well could. There’s also a possibility that this could be a next generation kind of thing. Who knows?

The original Coming to America starred Murphy as Prince Akeem Joffer of the fictional African nation of Zamunda, who travels to the U.S. to escape an arranged marriage and try to find true love in the States. It also starred Arsenio Hall, James Earl Jones, Shari Headley, and John Amos, none of whom have made any moves to join the sequel, but we’ll see. Notably, Murphy and Hall each played multiple characters in the original movie, so if they really wanted to double down, the whole movie could just be a two-man show.